Walton High School Newsletter July 2020

Summer Edition!

Contact Us The Rise Walton on the Hill Stafford ST17 0LJ 01785 334917 or office@walton.staffs.sch.uk

www.waltonstaffs.com

Brightening up the school

entrance is this wonderful

design by Will Tomkinson

Y10. Will was supported by

the key worker children

and they created the

colourful rainbow to

celebrate all the key

workers who have worked

so hard during the

lockdown.

NHS & KEY WORKER

R A I N B O W GLORIOUS SUMMER FLOWERS

The beautiful flowers in our school gardens are in bloom. This is thanks

to our students’ hard work and we are all looking forward to welcoming

them back in the new term.

In the early days of the COVID-19 Lockdown, our Design

& Technology department became aware of the

national response to the hospital PPE shortage

promoted on television and radio as an initiative called

‘For the Love of Scrubs’. Looking a little further on our

local hospital websites Mrs Green came across

Scrubs4Stoke, initially asking volunteers to make scrubs

comprising of tops and trousers for the University

Hospital North Midlands covering Stafford and Stoke.

This grew into a massive county effort with volunteers

with all levels of sewing experience initially using any

fabrics to hand such as duvet covers and recyclable

sheets.

Scrubs4Stoke raised money for fabric

donations and many local stores also donated

fabric. Tasks ranged from volunteers cutting

out and distributing hundreds of sets of pre-cut

scrubs to be made up. Mrs Green contributed

to the County effort from home, making 25 full

sets by the end of May, Mrs White and Mrs

McCann helped at the Peace Memorial Hall in

Penkridge making hospital gowns, which you

may have seen on the Midlands News Bulletin

on June 12th in Nick Owen's Heroes section.

SCRUBS4STOKE

In Penkridge, Mrs White had the honour of completing the 5,000th gown completed by the volunteers. The project

initially aimed to make 2,000 sets of scrubs. With the huge community effort, the group exceeded this to an incredible

5,000 sets. Apparently, the laundry section at the Royal Stoke routinely use 4,000 sets of scrubs in a week!

After our STEM groups reached the final of the Big Bang Fair, one group continued their success by winning a

special award - ‘The Energy Institute Climate Change Award’. The four members were Harry Lunt, Harvey Turner,

Eden Jones and James Hurst and their project consisted of producing a turbine which harnessed the energy

produced by running water from a drainpipe. The device can produce above 8V of electricity, which is fantastic!

Hopefully we might see ‘Blu Pipe’ on new build houses in the future.

The Energy Institute Climate Change Award celebrates a project designed to help bring about a lasting reduction

in greenhouse gas emissions, as a contribution to the UK’s goal of reaching net zero by 2050. This may be either

a novel technological idea or an innovative way of encouraging people to change their behaviour or lifestyle.

The winning student(s) will receive £500 and a framed certificate. They will also star in an episode of the Energy

Institute podcast, 'Energy In Conversation', write special posts for the Energy Institute blog, Twitter and Instagram

feeds, spend a day with the Energy Institute in London to learn about their work and careers in energy and attend

one of the EI’s introductory training courses or conferences (subject to covid-19).

THE ENERGY INSTITUTE CLIMATE CHANGE AWARD

In early March, three of our students were celebrated for

their entries to the Stafford Green Arts Festival poetry

competition. Their task was to communicate the message

that there is no planet B, so we must look after the one that

we have!

We did extremely well and formed four of the 'top 5' young

people's poems in the 11-15 category: Imogen Davies won

1st prize with her poem 'No Planet B', Hannah Boyce won

2nd place with 'Earth' and Alfie Daws won 3rd place with

'Planet A'. These three poems plus Jed Gilroy's 'Save the

Earth' were displayed over half term at the festival at St

Chad's Church, Stafford and the Staffordshire Poet

Laureate, Mel Woodend was delighted with the quality of

these four poems in particular.

THERE IS NO PLANET B

We had over 50 entries for this competition, and

shortlisting was extremely difficult when all of the poems

submitted were incredibly passionate! A huge well done to

all!

POETRY BY HEART

Since November, several students in Year 7-9 took on the immense task of selecting, rehearsing and

learning off-by-heart, two poems for the national competition held in London called Poetry by Heart.

This was a huge undertaking, especially considering several of the candidates were also partaking in

numerous other extra-curricular events, including the Pyramid Concert. Alyssa Harman and Hayli

White (Year 9) stunned with their individual entries, each showing great courage and passion for their

chosen poems.

It was no easy feat performing alone in front of a judging panel and the other competitors but they

both blew the panel away. We also had three group entries in Year 7: Enya Al-Khaldi, Emily Pearson,

Iris Chadwick and Rosie George formed one group, Ella Beeson and Rosie Prince another, and Milly

Heywood, Natalie Hawkins and Lily Hayward the final group. All three rehearsed several times a week

for months and performed fantastically well. It was a very tough decision, as all were tremendous,

but Ella Beeson and Rosie Prince won the group category and Alyysa Harman the individual.

Well done to all involved! We hope you partake in more competitions like this!

We have also run over ten other writing competitions this year and several of our students have

been published by Young Writers - too many to list here, but we have been impressed by the quality

and imagination of all students who have entered these competitions this year. We have many

talented young writers in this school. Well done to all who have submitted an entry to an English

Competition this year!

This year the Art Department relocated their annual Art Show online.

The week-long event took place from Monday 22nd June until Friday

26th June and featured a showcase of Year 11 GCSE and Year 13 A Level

Art and Photography work. Viewers of the show also had the

opportunity to vote for their favourite artwork for the ‘People’s Choice

Award’, with the winners announced on the last day of the show.

We had over 6000 views in the week of the show, a fantastic response

for the voting of the ‘People’s Choice’ award and a practicing

photographer who inspired one of our student’s work, got in touch with

words of support for our students!

ART SHOW 2020

Congratulations to this year’s winners:

GCSE

Artist of the Year: Eden Jones

Headteacher’s Award: Isabelle Salsbury

People’s Choice: Alicia Walton Runners up:

Kierut Bajwa, Taiah Hay

A Level Art

Artist of the Year: Hannah Parton

Headteacher’s Award: Maisie Bairstow

People’s Choice: Hannah Parton Runners up:

Rebecca Ashcroft, Caitlin Baker

A Level Photography

Photographer of the Year: Scarlett Richards

Headteacher’s Award: Solomon Todd

People’s Choice: Molly Higham Runners up:

Maisie Bairstow, Solomon Todd

The online Art Show has been a great success and

this was a fantastic opportunity for us to

celebrate the hard work and dedication of our

Year 11 and Year 13 Art and Photography

students, despite their time at Walton being cut

short.

The Art Department would like to say a huge

thank you to these students for all their hard work

and for everyone who visited, engaged with and

shared the Online show to enable us to celebrate

our students work in the way that they deserve.

The Art Show is still available to view at

waltonartdept.wordpress.com.

To celebrate World Book Day during March this year

students were again able to attend school in fancy dress

as a book character for the day.

There was a best dressed student competition held in the

Library. Here are a selection of pictures from the day.

WORLD BOOK DAY 2020

.

Thanks to the Sixth Form helpers on the day.

During the lockdown and as the school has

been closed to many students, the Art

Department have been celebrating the

successes of their students on their blog,

waltonartdept.wordpress.com.

Every Monday and Friday we have been

celebrating some of the work that our KS3,

GCSE and A level students have been

completing at home. We are so incredibly

proud of the effort and hard work that our

students are still putting into their work

despite the circumstances and wanted to

provide a platform to celebrate this as widely

as possible.

Class teachers have been selecting incredible

work that they wish to showcase each week

and students have also been undertaking

other creative activities alongside their

classwork. Our very talented Year 11 GCSE

student, Isabelle Salsbury, was featured on

our blog for her fantastic portrait of Captain

Tom Moore and has since appeared in the

Staffordshire Newsletter.

CELEBRATING STUDENT SUCCESS

IN THE ART DEPARTMENT

We are continuing to showcase our

students’ outstanding work online at

waltonartdept.wordpress.com so be

sure to head over there and help us to

celebrate their achievements!

ROYAL NAVY VISIT

Pictures from the memorable careers visit by the Royal Navy on 28th February as part

of our PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic) education programme.

CLASS OF 2014 AND 2016 LEAVING DAY - 20.3.20

Year 13 Leavers' Day

This was a much earlier day than anticipated! Without our usual

lead up, I could have been forgiven for worrying that this wouldn't

be the quality send-off that Year 13 deserved and were entitled to

after all their hard work. However, as it was there was no need to

worry, thanks largely to Hannah Humble and Uchwash Golder.

These students worked tirelessly in a very small space of time to

produce films, presentations and speeches that helped make the

celebration of the end of secondary education be the occasion

that it should be! I cannot thank them enough and I know the rest

of the year group felt the same. Their contributions helped make

this a really special event. It is always a bittersweet time but felt

even more so given that the school leaving date was brought so

far forward. We are looking forward to seeing students on results

day and also to such time when we can celebrate their successes

in the form of an Awards Evening as we have always been able to

do in the past. We wish them all every success with their future

endeavours and are proud of them all.

Mrs Cooper and the Sixth Form Team

Year 11 Leavers' Day

Our Year 11 leavers’ day also arrived earlier than

we were expecting. However, despite the change

of plans that needed to be put into place at speed,

the day was a huge success with a nice jovial

atmosphere, especially in the Maths department,

where like elsewhere, photographs were taken and

shirts were signed. There was also great fun in the

assembly with the naming of the various tutor

group characters!

Information regarding the new term in

September will be posted on the School website.

NEW TERM

Help raise funds for Walton High

School while you shop! It’s simple –

just follow the link

https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk

and search for Walton High School,

Stafford.

Easyfundraising

CHALLENGING STEREOTYPES

This year, students from Year 7 were challenged to identify the jobs of the

guests who were invited to and visited school. The event explored the skills

and qualities that the employers needed to undertake their jobs – with

some interesting discussions and surprising guesses from everybody.

After the whole year group session, students were able to take part in

break-out Q&A sessions with the visitors to find out more about how they

got to do their jobs.

Congratulations to the students who rose to the challenge of

researching and producing an essay on the organisations from which

our visitors came, and in particular the winners of the £20 Love to Shop

Vouchers, presented to them by Mr Finlay, Mr Stokes and Nikki

Lambert (Careers Adviser).

The vouchers were donated by Entrust Skills and Employability.

3D Prints

Arran Terry

Year 9

In his free time during

lockdown Arran has been

testing out and getting to

grips with his 3D printer.

He has produced these

two great 3D prints. A

great achievement during

lockdown.